Wide Awake

by Parquet Courts

Wide Awake cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 18 May 2018
  • Label: Rough Trade
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 38:37
  • Community rating: 3.85/5 from 22 ratings

Artists on this release: Sean Yeaton, A. Savage, Max Savage, Austin Brown

Album Notes & Community Reviews

On 'Wide Awake!', Parquet Courts collaborated with producer Danger Mouse to pivot from their established post-punk sound towards funk, punk-funk, and danceable grooves, creating their most rhythmically expansive and accessible work. This vibrant instrumentation provides a tense contrast to the album's urgent and politically charged lyrics, which confront societal violence, inequality, and the necessity of collective consciousness with a mix of outrage and optimism. The result is a critically acclaimed album that balances its cathartic energy with pointed social commentary, capturing a unique blend of protest and celebration.

Genres

Descriptors: funky, dance, political, witty, talk-singing, melodic, rhythmic, groove-laden

Tracklist

  1. Total Football (04:01)
  2. Violence (04:05)
  3. Before the Water Gets Too High (04:05)
  4. Mardi Gras Beads (02:43)
  5. Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience (03:14)
  6. Freebird II (02:55)
  7. Normalisation (02:11)
  8. Back to Earth (03:54)
  9. Wide Awake (02:38)
  10. NYC Observation (01:22)
  11. Extinction (01:41)
  12. Death Will Bring Change (02:42)
  13. Tenderness (03:06)

Credits

  • Austin Brown - guitar, vocals, keyboards on "death will bring change," "back to earth," and "mardi gras beads"
  • A. Savage - guitar, vocals, keyboards on "violence," "freebird ii," "before the water gets too high", artwork, layout
  • Max Savage - percussion, vocals, synthesizer on "total football" and "normalisation"
  • Sean Yeaton - bass, vocals
  • Danger Mouse - production
  • Kennie Takahashi - engineering
  • Joe LaPorta - mastering
  • Claudius Mittendorfer - mixing
  • Jonathan Schenke - engineering

More from Parquet Courts: full discography